The Latest Brocade News
Product and Solution Information, Press Releases, Announcements

As the IT environment evolves to include cloud and As-a-Service IT offerings, the federal government recognizes the need for alternative methods to procure infrastructure that makes better use of available budget. The availability of Brocade Network Subscription through immixGroup's GSA Schedule contract offers solutions in response to the federal government's growing desire for utility-based, on-demand IT acquisition.

Brocade also announced that the company's OpenStack plugin for Brocade® VDX® Switches is now certified for Mirantis OpenStack. Brocade builds on the proven Mirantis OpenStack platform and Fuel, an open source deployment automation tool for OpenStack, to enable multitenant network orchestration across the data center. Brocade also provides additional network services to OpenStack environments with the Brocade Virtual ADX® and Brocade Vyatta® vRouter offerings. Both of these offerings will be certified with Mirantis OpenStack 5.x in the near future.

“Our existing core IT infrastructure was certainly in need of an update,” commented Scott Newton, Head of IT, National Trust for Scotland. “Although as an organisation we take conservation very seriously, there was a risk that this was starting to extend to our network as well. This meant that our IT team was having to spend more and more time just keeping things up and running. As user demand for connectivity and bandwidth continues to grow, we simply would not have been able to cope. We needed to invest in an infrastructure that would allow staff to access the online resources they need, quickly and reliably.”

“In 2015, our focus is on equipping Brocade partners to lead the transformation in networking to the New IP -- delivering exceptional customer experiences that leverage software networking while optimizing customers’ existing networks,” said Bill Lipsin, Brocade Vice President of Global Channel Sales and Marketing. “In the coming year, we’re investing in providing the building blocks for cloud offerings so that partners can deliver networking solutions covering both cloud and on-premise solutions.”

This flexibility is critical for enterprises and service providers that must support their growing network needs as part of the transition to the New IP. The New IP is a dramatic evolution in networking resulting from the scale, speed, and scope of growing cloud, mobile, and social requirements.

"Campus customers require a high-performance network infrastructure that is future-proof, that is simple to provision and manage, and that can scale at the speed of business. The latest innovations in the Brocade ICX portfolio significantly advance these capabilities and ensure that customers are prepared for the New IP," said Jason Nolet, Brocade Vice President of Switching, Routing, and Analytics products.

In the new Cloud Plus data center in Sydney Brocade VDX® 6740 switches have been matched with the latest Supermicro multinode integrated compute devices and high density storage devices from EMC and Supermicro to create a highly efficient cloud computing infrastructure. Because the data center has only recently been bought into operation, infrastructure utilization levels are still relatively low but Cloud Plus is only paying Brocade for the Ethernet fabric ports connected to active nodes. And, as demand for capacity at the Sydney data center grows, Cloud Plus can add more Brocade VDX switches to increase the size of the fabric network, enabling it to align costs with revenue on a dynamic basis.

During its last financial year, ended 30 June 2014, Vocus Communications' key driver of business growth was its Fibre and Ethernet product line. Revenue from Fibre and Ethernet services grew 87 percent to reach AUD$28.02 million. The Vocus Fibre network now reaches over 1,000 buildings in Australian cities and provides near-net connectivity to an additional 30,000 buildings.

At VMworld 2014 Europe (Booth G212), Brocade is showcasing the company's latest collaboration with VMware -- the Brocade IP Management Pack for VMware vRealize Operations and vRealize® Log Insight™, which are two key components of VMware vRealize Suite 6. Available for download next month from the VMware Solutions Exchange, the new management tools provide end-to-end visibility across physical and virtual networks. Diagnostics information from Brocade VDX Ethernet fabric switches can be used in conjunction with information from the VMware NSX™ network virtualization platform to quickly pinpoint network problems. Once an issue is identified, the tools also suggest recommended actions that IT staff can take to avoid or fix the potential problem, before network performance is affected.

"With stored data expected to grow at a 44 percent CAGR over the next five years, enterprises are demanding that their recovery solutions meet ever higher standards in keeping data available amid a wide variety of increasingly frequent natural and man-made disasters," said Eric Burgener, research director for storage at IDC. "Furthermore, end users are expecting to access their data on a 7x24 basis, forcing enterprises to meet their demands for 'always on' application services."